Thread: ICE opens its first-ever designed-and-built civil detention center

I.C.E. News Release

March 13, 2012
Karnes City, TX

ICE opens its first-ever designed-and-built civil detention center

New facility in Texas opens today for low-risk, minimum security adult male detainees

KARNES CITY, Texas — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) announced on Tuesday the opening of its first-ever designed-and-built civil detention center, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) overall detention reform program.

The Karnes County Civil Detention Center is a 608-bed civil immigration detention facility, designed to house adult male, low-risk, minimum security detainees. The detainees who will be housed at Karnes will first be carefully screened to ensure that they do not pose a threat to themselves or others, and are not a flight risk.

"This civil detention center represents a first in the entire history of immigration detention," said ICE Director John Morton. "Karnes and others like it are one part of an ICE detention reform program that is sensible, sustainable and attentive to the unique needs of the individuals in our custody."

The civil detention facility model allows for greater unescorted movement, enhanced recreational opportunities and contact visitation, while maintaining a safe and secure atmosphere for detainees and staff.

In December 2010, ICE entered into an intergovernmental service agreement with Karnes County. The GEO Group Inc. was responsible for developing the center, in addition to operating the center as it opens its doors. This contract represents a significant milestone in the agency's long-term effort to reform the immigration detention system, prioritizing the health and safety of detainees in our custody while increasing federal oversight and improving the conditions of confinement within the system.

ICE's detention reform efforts call for putting detention centers in strategic locations that maximize detainee access to local consulates and pro-bono legal services, reduce detainee transfers within the detention system and increase overall operational efficiencies, allowing for a reduction in detainees' average length of stay in ICE custody.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE is a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities. For more information, visit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. To report suspicious activity, call 1-866-347-2423 or complete our tip form.

U.S. Dept of Homeland Security

ICE opens its first-ever designed-and-built civil detention center

It's freaking 4 star hotel for illegal aliens!

W

Feds Unveil Immigration Detention Facility

New facility is southeast of San Antonio

By Will Weissert
| Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 |

Federal officials are unveiling a new 608-bed detention facility they say represents the Obama administration's pledge to overhaul America's much-maligned system for jailing immigration offenders.

Three years ago, the White House promised to rethink detention policies following 2007 civil-liberties lawsuits filed on behalf of families held at an immigration facility in central Texas that put children behind razor barbed-wire.

The new civil detention center for low-risk detainees and is in Karnes City, 60 miles southeast of San Antonio. Reporters and advocacy groups are touring it Tuesday.

Authorities say it was built with more-humane reforms in mind and will allow detainees greater unescorted movement, and more recreational options and contact with visitors

But activists wonder whether building a new facility is enough. Conservatives, meanwhile, have accused federal officials of coddling law-breakers.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Feds Unveil Immigration Detention Facility | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

RELATED

Federal prisoners in W.Va. test MP3 player program
Federal prisoners have been able to buy radios for decades. If the program works in West Virginia, it will be rolled out to other federal facilities in late spring or early summer.
http://www.alipac.us/f19/federal-pri...rogram-252822/

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f19/prisons-ret...sanity-252824/

All notations in red made by poster.

A new kind of detention center for immigrants

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

KARNES CITY — With the first-of-its kind “civil” detention center in the country built from the ground up, officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday held a grand opening for a facility they say is part of an effort to make the immigration detention system less penal and more humane.


The $32 million facility, the Karnes County Civil Detention Center, was built as part of an agreement between ICE and Florida-based The GEO Group, which already runs a jail here.

The new center spans 29 acres and has 608 beds, with the capability of expanding to 1,200. It will hold nonviolent, low-risk adult men apprehended in Texas. Detainees will start arriving this month.



The Karnes County Civil Detention Center includes a courtyard with a soccer field, basketball courts and other recreation areas.



Karnes City detainees will be housed in “dorms” or “suites” of eight people apiece. Each unit has a television and a bathroom.



The new facility also has a barber shop, commissary, cafeteria-style dining, washers and dryers, law library, computer lab with Internet access, and 23 cable TV channels


ICE has faced pressure from (illegal) immigrant advocates and some members of Congress to improve detention conditions for the roughly 400,000 immigrants it houses annually. The agency also has been criticized for bringing immigrants caught in places such as the Northeast to remote facilities in the Southwest, far from relatives in the U.S.


“We wanted to consolidate our (illegal alien)detainees into fewer facilities, to hold detainees closer to where we apprehended them, to reduce the number of people transferred away from their families, their communities and their attorneys,” said Gary Mead, executive associate director for ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations.

Also, “We wanted more access to services, more recreation and more natural light within the facilities we use to house our (illegal alien)detainees.”


Despite the changes, critics protested in front of the center Tuesday. They said ICE secretively forced the facility on taxpayers when it should be using cheaper and more humane alternatives to detention, such as bond or ankle and telephone monitoring.


The average cost of detention is $122 per person per day, whereas alternatives to detention cost about $12 a day, human rights advocates said.


“We're very concerned that they're partnering with GEO, which has a track record of abuse, lawsuits, mismanagement allegations and cancellation of prison contracts in Texas,” said Bob Libal of Austin-based Grassroots Leadership.


Since 2009, ICE has retrofitted one facility each in California, Virginia and New Jersey to meet the more civil approach.


But the Karnes facility, 60 miles southeast of San Antonio, is the first custom-built for those needs. Mead said two similar detention centers are planned for south Florida and Chicago, but those will also house medium- and high-risk detainees.


In language that brings to mind college and hotel rooms, ICE officials said detainees at Karnes will be housed in “dorms” or “suites” that hold eight people. Each dorm has a television and a private bathroom. Some TVs in common areas have 23 cable channels.


The facility also features a courtyard with a soccer field, basketball courts and other recreation areas. It also offers cafeteria-style dining, washers and dryers, and a law library and computer lab with Internet access.

Detainees also will have access to a full-time doctor, a part-time dentist and a pharmacist.


(Illegal Aliens) Immigrants will be able to move openly inside the detention center from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. but will be watched by “resident advisers.” Phone calls will still be monitored.


Change will be evident even as detainees arrive at the facility. They will be allowed a free, three-minute phone call to speak to relatives in their home country. They also can make free calls to their home consulates around the U.S.


Other calls generally carry charges of 10 cents to 25 cents a minute, according to charts posted in various parts of the facility.


And while regular jails normally mandate jumpsuits and regulation slip-on shoes, here there is a variation.

“They will be able to keep their athletic shoes with laces,” said Joe Longoria, a supervisory detention and deportation officer for ICE. “That's another dynamic not seen at other facilities.”


Mead said the average stay will be about 30 days.


Civil rights groups weren't impressed.


“No matter how nice it looks, the fact is you're still depriving people of their liberties,” said Andrea Black, executive director of Washington-based Detention Watch Network. “You're still keeping them from their families, you're still keeping them an hour plus from any urban areas, where they could get social service support and family support.”

Sarwat Husain, president of the San Antonio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said a large percentage of the detainees are going to be Muslim, but regardless of that, “these detainees are not coming there for a vacation. They are coming there with heavy minds and heavy hearts.”


Husain was one of a few members of nongovernmental (illegal) immigrant-advocacy and civil-rights groups who toured the jail after the media Tuesday.


“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and smells like a duck, it's a duck,” she said. “It's just a glorified prison.”

Read more: My San Antonio

March 19, 2012

Obama now providing salad bars and abortions to illegal aliens (at your expense)

Dave Gibson
Immigration Reform Examiner


New detainment facility in Karnes City, Texas
Credits:
Courtesy of ICE (ICE.gov)

In a few days, illegal aliens will begin arriving at a brand new federal detention center in Karnes City, Texas, but, this facility more closely resembles a college campus or summer camp than it does a federal prison.

This 608-bed facility sits on 29 acres, southeast of San Antonio and boasts a library with internet access, cable TV, basketball courts, a fitness center, soccer fields and even a dining facility complete with salad bar.

In a press release, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement describes the facility: “This civil detention center represents a first in the entire history of immigration detention. Karnes and others like it are one part of an ICE detention reform program that is sensible, sustainable and attentive to the unique needs of the individuals in our custody.”

And, as the Chicago Tribune reports, the guards will no longer be referred to as such, but will now be known as “resident advisors” (told you it sounded like college). Instead of their traditional uniforms, those “advisors” will now don less threatening polo shirts and khakis and more importantly… be unarmed.

The cost to the taxpayers for the new facilty?...$32-million.

A facility just like it will be built just outside Chicago and another in southern Florida, according to ICE officials.

It is all part of the Obama administration’s larger effort to improve the living conditions of detained illegal aliens awaiting deportation.

In June 2010, the Houston Chronicle reported the details of an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement email, that though seem laughable, were quickly confirmed by an ICE official.

Beth Gibson, ICE's senior counselor to Assistant Secretary John Morton, who confirmed the changes, reported that much of the new policy will be implemented within 30 days at detainment centers from California to New Jersey.

Gibson defended the changes, saying: “When people come to our custody, we're detaining them to effect their removal. It's about deportation. It's not about punishing people for a crime they committed.”

The changes include:

-hanging plants
-free movement for detainees
-longer visiting hours
-replacing guards with “unit managers”
-allowing detainees to wear their own clothing
-email access
-free phone service
-dance classes
-movie nights
-art classes
-cooking classes
-tutoring and computer training
-self-serve beverage stations

In addition to the new amenities, ICE has also reduced or in some cases, eliminated pat-down searches, which raised particular concern for Tre Rebstock, president for Local 3332, the ICE union in Houston.

Rebstock told the Houston Chronicle: “Our biggest concern is that someone is going to get hurt.”

Rebstock continued: “My grandparents would have loved to have bingo night and a dance class at the retirement home they were in when they passed away, but that was something we would have had to pay for. And yet these guys are getting it on the taxpayers' dime.”

In October 2009, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to use converted hotels and nursing homes to house some illegal aliens, rather than keeping them in jails under the current system.

That same month, The Washington Post reported that John T. Morton, assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement would meet with contractors to discuss converting residential facilities to house nonviolent detainees. Morton also said that within six months, his agency would begin a medical classification system to help detainees with their healthcare needs.

Also in 2009, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said that ICE would begin ranking illegal alien detainees, even criminally convicted aliens by the flight risk and danger they pose to the public, and issue bids for new facilities (hotels).

Currently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining roughly 33,000 illegal aliens, about half of whom are felons.

As if providing free legal advice, bingo games and cable TV to those who come to this country illegally and commit other crimes while they are here was not enough…The Obama administration also supplies sex-change hormones to detained illegal aliens as well.

A 2010 investigation by the KHOU News team in Houston revealed that a number of illegal aliens incarcerated are receiving prescribed sex hormone at taxpayers’ expense.

In 2009, Jose Centeno was jailed by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detained after discovering a previous felony drug conviction. While he was detained, ICE prescribed and dispensed the hormone drug Premarin to the transgendered man.

Centeno, who now goes by the name “Krystal,” told KHOU: “I'm transgender so I am taking female hormones. It's not a choice, I was born, and I already knew I was born, in the wrong body, so it wasn't a choice -- I need those meds/hormone therapy to be who I am, but it's not a choice.”

ICE states that they do not keep accurate records on the number of transgendered detainees receiving hormone therapy…in other words, they will not tell us how much we spend every years on hormone therapy for criminal aliens.

However, some checking found that COSTO sells 100 tablets of Premarin (1.25 mg) for a price of $177.01, or $1.77 per pill.

Based on Costco’s price and a twice a day dosage, the transgender illegal alien costs the taxpayers an additional $637 for a six-month detention for their hormone therapy.

In late 2011, ICE announced an official policy in order to accommodate transgendered detainees.

Perhaps, most outrageous, ICE’s latest detainee guidelines even offer free abortions…

ICE’s 2011 Performance-Based National Detentions Standards states the following:

“A pregnant detainee in custody shall have access to pregnancy services including routine or specialized prenatal care, pregnancy testing, comprehensive counseling and assistance, postpartum follow up, lactation services and abortion services. (pg. 256)

Read the ICE guidelines in their entirety: http://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention-.../pbnds2011.pdf

The Obama administration is basically creating all-inclusive resorts for illegal aliens complete with free medical care, all at the expense of the American taxpayer, and while Obama continues to claim that he does not plan to extend healthcare benefits to illegal aliens, the fact is…he already does.

It is more than outrageous that during the worst economic period this nation has experienced since the Great Depression, as millions of Americans continue to face unemployment and lose their homes in record numbers, that we are now being forced to pay for illegal aliens to live more comfortably and be given the sort of medical care that by Obama’s own estimate—more than 40 million Americans cannot afford for themselves.

Also, read about Obama's first-ever taxpayer-funder "Public Advocate" for detained illegal aliens: An illegal alien czar? - National Immigration Reform | Examiner.com

One Old Vet

Obama now providing salad bars and abortions to illegal aliens (at your expense) - National Immigration Reform | Examiner.com